Never Mentioned
by thewriteranon
Summary: Two Gryffindor girls in Harry's year, confirmed to exist, were never named in the books. How would the events of the books look to those not as involved?


**Note: This is a slight AU. I have tried to abide by canon as much as possible, but some romantic subplots have been shifted around.**

The night was colder than typical for a summer's evening in the little village of Guildcester, just south of London. Most of the lights in the little houses that lined the road were turned out, their inhabitants safely tucked away in their beds, but one house on the left stood out from the rest. Just a sliver of light shown out of the front downstairs window where a thin, pale face peeked out from behind a curtain. The woman in the window watched the street outside her home intensely, as if waiting for something to happen at any moment.

At the end of the street there was a slight _pop _and a man in a dark blue cloak appeared and began to walk fast toward the lit house on the left. The face of the woman in the window disappeared and a minute later reappeared as she opened the front door for the man in the cloak. The woman, looking frail and frightened, peered out into the street behind the man before looking up at him. She opened her mouth, as if to ask some question, but no noise came out.

"Don't panic, Mrs. Langley. I'm here on behalf of the Ministry." There was a slight movement from underneath his cloak and a silvery light shot out. Mrs. Langley watched the light as it seemed to take shape in front of her; afterward stepping aside and letting the man into her home.

The living room of the small home was bright and warm, a deep contrast to the cold night outside. Mrs. Langley showed the man inside and offered him a seat on the floral-patterned couch across from the brick fireplace. She herself sat down in a matching chair at a diagonal from the couch and leaned forward toward the man.

Before he sat down, the man in the cloak put down his hood, revealing his face at last, square jawed and serious, with a thick matting of sandy-colored hair on top his head. Mrs. Langley stood up at once as he did this.

"Oh, forgive me. Let me take your cloak," she said, her voice quivering just a little, but the man shook his head.

"That won't be necessary, Mrs. Langley. I won't stay long." He sat down in the seat she had offered and looked up at the pictures on the mantel over the fireplace. A beaming bride and a jolly groom smiled down at him, next to them a picture of the same man and woman with a tiny baby girl. The subjects seemed to shift in their frame; a stranger may have wondered how it was that the baby appeared to clench and unclench her tiny fist around her father's finger. The square-jawed man made no comment on this, though. On the other side of the mantel were pictures of what were presumably grandparents and great-grandparents, though they did not move, but stared straight ahead with their smiles never faltering.

"You have news?" asked Mrs. Langley after a minute or two of silence. The square-jawed man tore his eyes away from the pictures on the mantel to look back at the woman. Mrs. Langley appeared very nervous, pulling at her fingers, slipping her wedding band on and off.

"Yes, ma'am." The man paused and Mrs. Langley scooted forward on her seat. "I have to say I wish the news were happier, but−"

"No!" Mrs. Langley nearly fell off her seat.

"But your husband is dead. I'm very sorry, Mrs. Langley." For several minutes neither of them said anything. The square-jawed man looked away, back at the mantel, to give Mrs. Langley a moment to herself. Mrs. Langley scooted back in her seat, unable to comprehend what she had just been told. When she regained her ability to speak, she looked back up at the man in front of her.

"What happened, do you know?" she managed to croak. The man once again looked back at Mrs. Langley and gave a curt nod.

"The ones responsible have been apprehended and sent to Azkaban where they will await trial. Your husband seems to have put up a good fight; both of the attackers had injuries that hindered their resistance to authorities." There was a silence for the third time as the two looked at each other, Mrs. Langley processing this information that had just been given to her.

"Well, thank you, Sturgis," she whispered at last, looking down. Sturgis stood up and adjusted his cloak.

"The Ministry will contact you if anything else is discovered." Sturgis moved to the door, but turned back to Mrs. Langley one last time before leaving. "We're all really sorry this happened, Wendy. If there's anything you or Fiona need, just send us an owl." When Mrs. Langley didn't respond, Sturgis let himself out the door, and with another _pop _he was gone. Wendy Langley at last got up from her chair to once again peer out the window. The street was just as dark and empty as it had been before Sturgis's arrival.

Mrs. Langley pulled herself away from the window and turned off the light in the living room before proceeding upstairs. She walked slowly down the dark hallway, only stopping once to straighten a portrait that had been hanging lopsided. If she was startled by the soft, "_Thank you" _it gave, she didn't show it. At last she arrived at the last room on the right at the end of the hall. Mrs. Langley put her ear to the door before turning the handle and letting herself in.

The nursery was lit just enough by the moon outside that Mrs. Langley didn't need to turn on the light to see her two-year-old daughter sound asleep in the white and pink crib beneath the window. Mrs. Langley walked up to the side of the crib and laid her hand delicately on the soft brown hair on her daughter's head. Fiona shifted and scrunched her nose up in her sleep. Mrs. Langley continued to brush Fiona's hair with her fingers as tears began to roll down her face.

Mrs. Langley didn't know how she was going to explain to Fiona that her father was gone; Fiona was still much too young to understand. Yet Fiona would know something was wrong with her father didn't come back. Things would be much different from now on. Mrs. Langley would never be able to provide Fiona with the childhood her father could have given, and that upset her almost as much as losing someone she loved.

It had been nearly a year since the war had ended, but for Wendy Langley and her child the fight was not quite over yet.


End file.
